


False Summer

by ivyspinners



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Ficlet Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-01
Updated: 2011-10-01
Packaged: 2018-11-22 18:25:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11385840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyspinners/pseuds/ivyspinners
Summary: Earth turns, time passes, and seasons come and go. The Circle's relationship through the books, and how it regains normalcy of a sort after a false start.A collection of ficlets from Fief Goldenlake's Seasonal Bingo.





	False Summer

_summer_

Bells tolled cheerfully in the distance, bouncing through the air in musical waves. Rosethorn glanced at the roof; sure enough, there her four children reclined, limbs sprawled as though attempting to soak up more of the withering summer heat. Even from her garden, Rosethorn could see the straw dangling from Briar's mouth.

Just a few minutes more, Rosethorn decided. She would let him have just one lazy afternoon, to treasure later while he weeded to keep his muscles strong and ear intact.

They were speaking wordlessly, she soon realized, as the other three burst into laughter; a perfect moment of understanding.

Now? Yes, now.

"Boy!"

\--

_autumn_

Sandry's shoulder drooped slightly under her hand. Concerned, Lark looked very closely at the lines of her face, at pallor beneath her summer gold.

The smile on Sandry's face was gone, and her face was pinched as they watched Daja and Frostpine ride away.

"Lark," Sandry whispered. In her minute pause, Lark could hear bustle as Rosethorn and Briar, and Niko and Tris, packed. Sandry took a deep breath, and muttered, "I'm tired of change. I'm going to lose them all in the space of one moon."

Lark waited, but there was no sudden, soothing breeze around Sandry, and no one poked their heads out. Sandry was shielding from their thoughts.

\--

_winter_

Daja's steps left deep puddles in the otherwise frozen snow as she headed to the skating rink.

It was alarming to watch how comfortable she was with the cold. Frostpine always shuddered whenever he imagined snow or ice against his cheek - when the world was so cold it bleached his complexion from mahogany, as though his forbearers had been scorched by the sun, beyond frost-bite blue, to the pristine, endless silver-tipped white of a glacier. But the shudder was often play-acting, and as he watched Daja tracing clumsy circles over the ice, blades flashing, Frostpine felt a different chill grip his heart.

They'd received letters from the others, of course. Frostpine had expected them. What he hadn't expected was their contents, which had foreshadowed Daja's trials in Kugisko, the way fingers of frost touched his heart, reading the letters, had foreshadowed how he felt now.

Somewhere in Emelan, perhaps on the roof of the Duke's Citadel, Sandry was washing her hands in melted sleet: raindrops sliding off her dress, and never managing to take with it the impression of blood on her hands. Her fingers would never be white again.

Somewhere between Yanjing and Chammur, Briar woke every second night from nightmares of standing in a lush, green garden, streams tucked in the corners, and death tangled in the roots of desert trees. He'd never look at silver or gold the same way again.

Somewhere in the South, Tris was riding towards her own adventure. Maybe she'd already reached it.

None of them had written, in so many words, of their nightmares, but Frostpine knew enough of guilt to read between the lines. Daja, now, did too.

He glanced momentarily back at the letter Daja had struggled over for the past week as she pondered what to write. What not to say.

Daja was skating by herself on the ice, face composed but not serene, the empty space around her underlined by how she could spin - and did spin - without colliding with someone else. Frostpine wished he could allay some of the loneliness in Daja's heart, but he could only do so much. Her siblings would be like a miracle. It wouldn't come close to making her guilt vanish - which was exactly how that ought to be - but having these people who mattered so very much by her side would help them all.

Maybe, Frostpine thought, it was time to go home.

\--

_spring_

The tune in her head rose and fell, lah-dee-da-da, as Sandry tried to keep her smile interested and eyes focused. This was important. One day she would be advisor to Uncle's heir and she needed to know why the taxes on perfume from Janaal were so high.

It was still difficult to settle into the lesson when three letters lay unopened in her private chambers, tied shut with green silk ribbons. Their weight told Sandry that they contained souvenirs; all she had been able to think was that no present could best the knowledge that a year after leaving, they were coming home.

She would have no more privacy, true, and all three would notice the flush on her cheeks when she thought of the new ambassador's son; and her siblings would hear the humming in her head, when she ought to be listening to Uncle's advisors. But the past year had been lonely without their voices just within reach: one long winter, punctuated by Pasco, Lark and Yazmin, that was ending.

"I hope you found that educational," Uncle told her as they exited, "because I know it was not enthralling."

"I learned a great deal today," Sandry said gravely, and she had to glance down to hide a smile. Her mind was already reaching forward for the ribbon around her letters, like a seed struggling through frozen ground into sunlight. Lah-dee-da-da. She wondered what news awaited her. She wondered if it mattered, when Daja, and then the others, were coming home.

\--

_There is no summer._

\--

_autumn_

In Crane's greenhouse, where Briar had never belonged, autumn was forever absent. It had always unnerved Briar to work among the thriving plants, one instant, and then get slapped by the drowsiness the moment he stepped outside.

Unlike much else about him, that had not changed in his three years in the east. He still paused, struck by uncertainty, as the trees drooped in preparation of slumber, and leaves fell, one by one, to carpet the floor in damp orange. Inside, the forest of Crane's plants clamored; it was difficult to ignore them.

The last time it happened, also three years ago, his sisters had anticipated him. It had been Sandry who found him beginning to shiver on Crane's doorstep; she'd bought with her the scarf she'd knitted - one for each of the four of them - along with exasperated amusement that he'd forgotten.

But then, the last time, all three of his siblings had heard the shock coloring his thoughts.

Briar caught himself looking mournfully at the bright, summer interior of Crane's greenhouse. But no, he did not belong there, and autumn was the natural progression of life. He belonged in a world where time passed and summer faded. Besides, didn't all plants need an autumn?

The wind picked up, raising goose bumps along his bare neck. Leaves began raining down in earnest on the damp path around him as he walked alone to Discipline.

\--

_winter_

During his journey east, he had traveled alongside a trio of identical triplets. Brief acquaintance led to the glimmers of friendship, and when Briar sat opposite them during a conversation, keeping an eye on the traveling caravan leader that had tried to grossly overcharge their fare, he'd noticed the familiar signs, among the triplets, of words exchanged without speaking. The triplets were fifteen years his senior; they'd given him hope.

A futile hope, as it turned out.

Their previous dinner, for instance, among the glitter of Berenene's court. A winter snowstorm spun and shrieked outside, throwing hail against brick walls and a scattering of chips of shattered ice against the magic-reinforced glass windows. Twenty minutes in, a messenger had dashed, half-frozen, into the hall, interrupting festivities. Observing Berenene's face, Briar was almost tempted to say to his siblings, ' _I'm surprised Berenene's glare doesn't melt the ice, steam it up, and make him burn._ ' Then he'd remembered when he was, and hadn't bothered making them laugh.

Now it was much later, and Briar's steaming drink had gone cold - and he hadn't grown into enough of a Bag to call for the servants, in this hour of the frigid night, to warm it for him. He left it by his bed, reminding himself that he didn't actually want to listen to the girls again. Too much could hurt them; too much about them would annoy him, the way they nattered on.

He would tell that part to Sandry, too, he decided, if she pushed again for their previous closeness.

\--

_spring_

Tris's voice felt strange and unfamiliar in his head.

Except that was a lie, and while Briar didn't mind lying to other people, this lie was to himself and this lie mattered. Hadn't the three of them been unrelenting to Sandry when she tried keep her people hers when she knew she couldn't administer to them?

No, Tris's voice - and Daja's, and Sandry's - were striking in their familiarity. They were branded in his mind more permanently than the mark of their circle in the palm of his hand. And maybe he didn't mind that the icy resolve to be completely separate was gone.

When he felt Tris shifting to see through his eyes, it cemented the realization. Namorn was three days behind them. They'd stopped to wait for Tris, and Briar had left horseback to examine the newly unfurling leaves of a roadside chestnut tree. Tris suppressed a snort of laughter as Sandry reached for a bird's nest balanced up high, fragile twigs raining down in her wake.

 _'It's not exactly fun for the tree,'_ Briar told her dryly.

 _'Tell Sandry,'_ Tris suggested. _'Though you'll have to explain again why you thought Sandry wouldn't take your challenge seriously.'_

Briar knew exactly how likely Sandry was to heed his advice, and mentally rolled his eyes. Besides, the tree was full of memories of children climbing it until they were so high up, watchers had to shade their eyes from the glare of the sun.

He followed Daja's example, instead, at the look on Sandry's face: he laughed.

\--

_summer_

Brushing sweat off his brow for the third or fourth time since he began weeding, Briar's bronzed hand froze at the flicker in the corner of his eye. Pale blue cotton, billowing: he could sense woven plants winding around Sandry's magic.

"Rosethorn's not here to grab your ear any longer," she teased, tempting him inside with a glass of lemonade.

"Only cause she knows I don't need her to," he reminded her, "or she'd come before you could say, 'I'm pulling!'" He stared forlornly at the cool shade. "Maybe for an hour."

Laughing, her elegant hands grabbed his, which were grubby with dirt, and they joined their siblings inside for an hour of chatter, of laughter, of draping boneless, relaxing.

Briar _loved_ laughter, and he would never again forget it.

\--

fin


End file.
